--On 13 June 2004 16:15 +0100 Dave Howe <DaveHowe@gmx.co.uk> wrote:

disproof by counterexample is a valid technique.

only where the "law of excluded middle holds" true - that means if everything is black & white with no shades of grey. It is quite clear if nothing else from the circularity of threads on NANOG about this sort of stuff, the number of iterations around the circles, and the number of years this has been going on that there is no silver bullet. So there are two other possibilities: a) There is at least one (probably more) type of action which mitigates but does not fully solve the problem [in which case telling us why solution X doesn't work because it doesn't address example Y is not much help, as by assumption no solution is perfect], or b) There are no types of action which mitigate the problem. In which case go do something more interesting than read/write NANOG on the subject. There are a lot of (a)'s that are quite helpful. If anyone thinks, for example, that installing a decent firewall doesn't help prevent intrusions (no, it doesn't stop them all), or online access to OS fixes (ditto), I would suggest some statistics to show this would be useful. Alex

How the H*** did "Hitler and Nazis" relate to the subject ???

google for godwin's law i thought i had invoked it when mentioning ashcroft randy